Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany – What You Need to Know

Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (LRMC) is the evacuation and treatment center for injured U.S. Service Members and members of 44 coalition forces serving in Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa Command, Central Command, European Command and Pacific Command.

When soldiers are injured while serving in Afghanistan or Iraq, they are first treated at a U.S. Army Combat Hospital at a Forward Operating Base (FOB). If necessary, patients are then transported to a level II military treatment facility (MTF). The closest is Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

LRMC is the largest American hospital outside the U.S. and also provides medical treatments to over 245,000 military personnel and their families within Europe.

C-17 Globemasters and C-130 Hercules aircraft are commonly used to medevac patients to the hospital in Germany from places like Afghanistan (7 hours) and Iraq (5 hours). The medevac aircraft has specialized medical equipment on-board and specialized personnel that care for the patients during the flight to LRMC. They land at Ramstein Air Base, Germany and are bused to Landstuhl in specialized medical buses.

The medical facilities in Germany are transitional facilities. After a short stay (3 days to 3 weeks), the patients either return to Iraq or Afghanistan or are flown to a medical facility in the US for further treatment.

Is Your Passport Up-to-date?
We hate to think of our soldier getting wounded in action (WIA), but out in a war zone, that is reality. It’s a good idea to have make sure your passport is current in case your soldier is injured and transported to Landstuhl. You’ll want to be at your soldier’s side quickly. It can take several weeks to get a passport. Passport information: http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_1738.html

Soldiers’ Angels Germany
Soldiers’ Angels in Germany supports patients medevac’d to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center from Iraq and Afghanistan. They are an amazing group that has provided comfort at the side of many injured soldiers from war zones. Soldiers’ Angels also provides backpacks with basic necessities like toiletries and clothing. Learn more about Soldiers’ Angels Germany: http://soldiersangelsgermany.blogspot.com
Find out more about Soldiers’ Angels: http://soldiersangels.org

Comments

I am working to begin a movement I am referring to as “Operation HeartWings” that would send a special HeartWings pillow to everyone at Landstuhl. I do not know who the appropriate person is to speak to about this. My company’s website is http://www.heartwingslove.com and we feature two different pillows that are perfect for this project. We recently shipped a HeartWings pillow to one of our troops serving in Iraq and he loved it! His name is Walter Haynes and I believe his father is involved at Landstuhl in some way.

If there is any information available about getting this going and a contact name that I could correspond with, that would be wonderful.

Hi Melissa! Great project! Sounds like you need to contact Solders’ Angels as they are very involved at Landstuhl. Solders’ Angels volunteers provide many much needed items for injured soldiers and lots of TLC.

My name is Sharon Hitzman with the Brookings-Harbor Redshirts, in Brookings, Or.. We are a non-profit group of concerned citizens, many who are Veteran’s that want our troops to feel that they are fighting for a true purpose and that they are not forgotten.
We have no paid officers or employees’ and all donations go to our troops. We ship packages and special request items to our troops, hospitals and Mash units in harm’s way. This is our 5th year and we have sent over 5,000 packages so far. Our mission is to continue to send packages “Until They All Come Home”.
Our organization is working on a cookbook fundraiser. It will be called “While We Were Gone”, recipes most missed by our military, sponsored by The Brookings-Harbor Redshirts. We are collecting recipes from all present military, veterans, moms and wives of our military.
Can you direct me to how we can get the word out on your base for recipes? In the book the recipe will include the name of the service member, their rank and the person responsible for the recipe. Pictures can also be submitted. The Redshirts would appreciate any help you can give us. All of our volunteers work really hard to support our troops and want this cookbook to be a great success so we can continue to keep sending packages.
If possible we could put an article in your base newspaper, postings on bulletin boards or something on your website. Thank you so much for your time.